NW Cannabis Zone

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Seattle’s Pot Tickets: The Scandal Behind the Scandal

One officer wrote nearly 80 percent of the city’s marijuana citations. Why was that fact hidden from Chief Kathleen O’Toole?
by DOMINIC HOLDEN

The bad news came in three waves. The first came on July 23, when the Seattle Police Department once again made cringeworthy national headlines, this time for the way cops were issuing tickets to people caught using marijuana in public.

“African Americans Disproportionately Cited for Public Pot Use in Seattle,” blared the New York Times. According to a report released that day by SPD researchers, Seattle cops issued 32.9 percent of pot tickets to black people in the first half of 2014, even though black people make up less than 8 percent of the city’s population. White people, meanwhile, received only 50 percent of the tickets, even though they make up about 70 percent of the city’s population. (Several studies have found white and black people use pot at similar rates.)